Recovering ammunition?

[Mercurius]

I was surprised to note that the rules-as-written state that ammunition is automatically used up after being used. In "real life," that doesn't entirely make sense. When I was DMing I was allowing players to roll a saving throw for each arrow or bolt - if it saved then it was reusable, if not it was broken.

Do you follow the RAW? Or do you allow for players to recover ammunition and if so, how?

I'm also wondering about magic arrows and such. If one could recover, say, a +1 Firestorm Arrow, maybe the magic charge would be gone and it would be a normal arrow? Or maybe it would make more sense for magical arrows to be broken after being used?

 

[Ryujin]

I don't track regular ammunition unless it's dramatically appropriate, as in a survival situation. As far as magical ammunition goes, it's expended and rendered useless after it has been fired (hit or miss).

 

[malraux]

In general, my players and I have more interesting things to worry about than tracking mundane ammo. It's just not fun, imo. I could conceivable see a survival situation where it were interesting, but not routinely.

 

[Larrin]

I have never had a DM worry at all about ammunition at all. If you buy a bunch of arrows, one just assumes you have enough forever, since by level 4 its trivial to buy every arrow you'll ever need. Keeping track of such things is annoying and with some powers vague. Magic ammunition isn't the norm in 4e, and when you have special ammunition its priced as a consumable, and expected to be gone after use. Bows enchant their arrows, so its not needed to have the ammunition enchatned.

Basically, few if any, players keep track of mundane ammunition, as its not really worth it. Magic ammo is seldom used, and priced to be one shot.

 

[King Nate]

I tried keeping track of ammo, but found it to be hard in 4e. Some powers are questionable of how many arrows are used when using the power. Instead I took an idea from Gamma World and modified it to this...

If you used a weapon that uses ammo, during a short rest roll 1d20. 10 or higher you recover all your ammo, any other number and you subtract that number from your ammo. For example if you rolled an 8, you would subtract 8 pieces of ammo.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Nobody in my group tracks ammo, and I didn't even know until now that 4e has magical ammo.

 

[Nikosandros]

When 4e first came out I did track ammo, but it really screwed up the archer ranger. In addition, as many others have pointed out, with many powers it's really unclear how many projectiles are actually expended.

 

[TheUltramark]

I also figure ammo is "unlimited".
Especially if you are fighting humanoid monsters alot, that have a chance to be carrying the same ammo, you gotta figure the players pick it up and add it to their quantities too.

 

[AaronCline]

The Ranger in our group keeps track of how many arrow he shoots and will make a roll at the end of an encounter to see how many arrows he recovers. And if we dispatch any bow wielding characters, he'll take their arrows as well. I don't know how the DM descides what percentage of arrow he recovers or if he even has in mind how many arrows the NPCs start with, but it adds another layer of realism to the roleplaying.

 

[bganon]

I actually tracked ammo at first, but soon realized that it was a lot of bookkeeping with no clear purpose. As long as the party's within a day of civilization, 30 arrows/20 bolts is enough for 3-4 encounters (i.e. a full day) even if you don't allow recovery, and if they venture further afield buying 2-3 "units" of ammo is still not very much of a weight burden.

I generally just factor a few gp for ammo into a "general supplies" number that they spend anytime they're in a town. If there's an extended period underground or somewhere with scarce resources, after a few days I might call for a Dungeoneering check during an extended rest to scavenge/repair/replace dwindling ammo supplies (and perhaps other resources), but that's it.